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A partial, but not complete defense of Liam Neeson

I was struck when I saw a headline for an article at the Independent which read, "Liam Neeson: 'I walked the streets with a cosh hoping I'd be approached by a 'black bastard' so that I could kill him'." Yes, the headline grabbed my attention so I decided to read the article in its entirety. Unfortunately, it seems not everyone did that.

In an interview with Clémence Michallon, Neeson told the story of a friend confessing to him that she had been raped by a black man. Upon hearing the news, the action star claims he thought this:

"I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I'd be approached by somebody. I'm ashamed to say that, and I did it for maybe a week - hoping some 'black bastard' would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him."

That was the attention-grabbing headline in a nutshell. What those who didn't read the full article missed were the two following bits of information:

1) Neeson followed up on his racist admission by saying, "It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that. And I've never admitted that, and I'm saying it to a journalist. God forbid."

He added, "It's awful. But I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, 'What the f*ck are you doing', you know? ... I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge, to more killing and more killing."

2) When his friend told him about the rape, Neeson claims his immediate reaction was asking her, "Do you know who it is? What colour are they?," to which she responded, "Black."

Neeson has received a great deal of online backlash for his admission, but having read his story in its entirety, I'd like to come to a partial defense of the actor. In the article, Neeson sounded quite embarrassed and regretful of his past angry, violence, and racist thoughts and actions. People can change, and based on his admittance of the problem and seeming ability to come to terms with it and improve as a person as a result, I have a feeling he has changed for the better. Having said that, though, I can't come to his full defense just yet, for the fact, of all the questions he could have asked about the rapist-in-question, he inquired about the color of the man's skin. It wasn't, "About how old is he?," "How tall is he?," or "What does he look like?," it was, "What color is he?" Yes, racists can progress to the point where they fight against what they once supported, but it's much more common for said racist tendencies to linger in one's being. So in conclusion, while Liam Neeson shouldn't be painted as a racist due to this story, he also hasn't provided a very clear picture either. Hopefully his admittance of past racist-tendencies has helped him progress to the point where he's now fighting ardently against discrimination of all stripes, but it's probably too soon to assume as much.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/liam-neeson-rape-black-man-attack-cosh-cold-pursuit-sexual-assault-interview-a8760866.html

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